


hold to call the feeling senile

by plinys



Series: abc au challenge [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5748286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What’s your name,” the General asks. </p>
<p>This question is easy enough.</p>
<p>“FN-2187.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold to call the feeling senile

**Author's Note:**

> So 2016 means a new fic meme, and this year I'm doing the ABCs of AU's , first off is amnesia.

The first thing he’s aware of when he wakes up is the beeping of a heart monitor, steady and sure. Slowly other sounds come to him. He’s in a medbay – he can hear the sounds of the meddroids, the quiet voices doctor’s use when they don’t want their patients to hear. But there’s something else missing, the white noise in the background, the soft hum of the engines that run the buildings, the familiar clank of trooper boots against a hard floor.

He tries not to panic.

A good stormtrooper does not panic.

He forces his eyes open slowly, blinking past the bring lights. A meddroid finally notices he’s awake, it’s robotic voice offering comforts that he can’t even listen to, because the second the bright lights seem easier to see through he is hit with the sudden awareness that something is not right.

That what he had suspected laying there with his eye closed is suddenly true.

There’s no First Order insignia on the wall, the droids aren’t painted the familiar black and red color scheme – it’s all too light and all too bright.

His voice cracks, as he voices the words, “Where am I?”

It is impossible to read a reaction off of a meddroid, though it is not impossible for the droid to sense the way his heart beat elevates as it speaks. The panic that courses through his veins.

“You’re at the Resistance Headquarters on D’Qar. You were brought here following the destruction of the Starkiller base, three weeks prior and have been comatose ever sense.”

He passes out before the droid can say anything more.

\---

This time when he wakes up there’s more than just the meddroid for company.

The face of the woman standing beside his bedside at parade rest is a familiar one. He’s seen it on the most wanted posters, the wretched resistance leader – General Leia Organa.

He knows the stories, of what happens to troopers captured by the enemy. The First Order will not be coming for him. If he had been lucky they would have let him die with his fellow troopers when the base was destroyed (a notion that still seemed impossible for him to understand), but instead he was here trapped in a medbay as his body refused to work.

Clearly they intended to torture him for information.

“What’s your name,” the General asks.

This question is easy enough.

He could swear that her features were pulled together in something like concern. This woman, the number one enemy of the First Order, was looking at him as though she actually cared about his answer.

The notion was so absurd that he had to dismiss it immediately. 

“FN-2187.”

She is easier to read that a meddroid. The concern that had been in her features only seems to amplify.

“What is the last thing you remember, FN-2187?”

The part of him that has been trained not to give out First Order secrets know that he shouldn’t answer Organa’s question. But another part of him, a foolishly irrational part, wants to trust her.

He closes his eyes and tries to think for a second, filtering through his thoughts the way he was trained to. Orders pop out to the front, sentiments pushed down behind and all that remains is the mission.

“Jakku. We were heading to Jakku.”

\---

The meddroids say that he has amnesia.

They say it with a sense of finality _amnesia_ , and _may never get his memories back_.

It is the General that tells him his story, the story of the stormtrooper who ignored his orders, who betrayed the First Order to join the Resistance. He can’t imagine it, can’t imagine that the person she is speaking of is truly him. He had always been an outsider among his fellow troopers, but FN-2187 does not feel as if he could ever had been bold enough to do as she says.

He can sense no lie in her voice. He finds no real reason not to believe her.

Yet it is not until nearly a week of being awake, when someone bursts in and says, “Finn,” with a tone of devastation that he starts to want to believe her story.

He stars back at the man in surprise. Taking in the split eyebrow, the blood on the side of his face, his rumpled orange flight suit, and disheveled hair. He tries not to focus on the man’s eyes, because when FN-2187 looks into them, he could swear he sees the other man’s heart breaking.

His own follows in suit when with a voice that trembles ever so slightly the newcomer asks, “You don’t remember me, do you?”

\---

His name is Poe Dameron. He is the leader of the Resistance’s pilots, he was taken captive on Jakku left for dead, until one trooper disobeyed their orders and set him free. He tells him the story in a way that the General never could with such honesty and emotion that FN-2187 wants to cross the space between them, to lay his hand on top of Poe’s.

To be the man that Poe lost.

When Poe says the name _Finn_ it is with a sense of finality.

It seems silly for FN-2187 to be jealous of this _Finn_ – the Resistance member, the one worthy of Poe Dameron’s smiles.

But he is. He’s jealous of a person he might have once been, might one day be again, if only he could remember.

He tries to remind himself to smile, to react each time Poe says the name.

He tries to remind himself to hold his hands, when Poe’s eyes start to water and he can’t talk anymore.

\---

Stormtroopers were never the type to love.

Attachment of that kind bred disobedience and disorderly conduct. Though lust filled moments in the dark were never refused of them.

It hits him, during one of Poe’s visits, that this man must have been to _Finn_.

How it must hurt him each time looks at FN-2187 and does not see the man that he loves looking back at him.

So he tries harder, tries to calm the beating in his heart, the anxiety that makes his hands shake as he pulls Poe towards him, over the edge of the hospital bed to press their lips together in a kiss that is only slightly hesitant.

When Poe kisses back, desperate fingers curling against FN-2187’s hospital gown, he knows that he has made the right decision. That this is what he should’ve done the first time he saw Poe in the hospital room, saw that desperate look in his eyes.

FN-2187 plans to kiss every frown off of Poe Dameron’s lips.

Later he will assess his emotions.

He pushes back his jealousy – jealous of Finn, for having loved Poe, for being the man that Poe still clearly is waiting for.

And instead focuses on the more complicated emotion inside of him, the one he can only describe as love, as _compassion_.

He cares for Poe.

Not in the way Finn might have. He cannot.

Instead, he cares for the man that waits patiently by his bedside. Who tells him stories of his childhood on Yavin 4. Who holds his hand as he takes his first shaky steps after weeks of being comatose. Who kisses him like his very live depends on it.

When he says, “I love you,” it is FN-2187 desperately saying the words.

And when Poe returns the sentiment, he tries to imagine he’s saying the words to FN-2187 as well.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] hold to call the feeling senile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9142525) by [plinys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys), [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




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